The Small Differences
by Adnesle
Summary: Spoilers : for The Summit, fourth season episode. Usual disclaimers, this is fanfiction and amateur publication etc. Summary : Da'an's musings and the collection of small differences that make Boone and Liam so different. Mild warning : the fic-writer was


THE SMALL DIFFERENCES  
  
It was near midnight. The embassy was deserted, a shell, emptied of all its personnal, containing a Taelon emptied of all his content. Three days before, the Synode wanted his head brought on a silver plate. Two days before, all the hopes that he had ever had of saving his people had vanished into thin air, leaving him nothing else than this poisoned gift, this long life. Millenias that he could still spend, watching the members of his species struggle, descend into insanity then die. Yesterday, the Synod had forgiven his unexplained actions because he had caused the death of a Jaridian, which was worth of a honor. His fellows had wanted to know why and how, the reasons of his abrupt leave-taking and what he had attempted to do, they knew him : and Da'an was no murderer. He had told them it was a time in his life that was troubling, far too troubling for him to talk about it, to the Synod, or to anyone else.  
  
Given honors for having perpetrated a murder. In fact, he WAS directly responsible of Balvak's death. He had contacted him, had risked his life, more than his life, his death and his ensured passage to the plane that was beyond, in contacting the enemy, in inviting him to a peaceful rendezvous. The Jaridian had accepted. Perhaps because Balvak had believed in peace. Or perhaps because he was so weary of the war that peace was the only possibility that was plausible.  
  
Da'an still recalled, this feeling. Fear, hesitation, doubt. A feeling that was maybe the closest to instinct he would ever feel, the closest to instinct that the Taelons were left to feel, what they had not abandonned during their accelerated evolution. He had known anticipation : this quiver, this long and grand and cold shiver that had run from his feet to his neck, when he had seen the portal activating under the shower of sparkles. He had feared for one moment that everything would fail at this precise moment. Then the Jaridian had suddenly come to form himself, all of a sudden. Balvak had printed himself before his eyes. Had become a creature of brown and whitish tones on the same-toned grey background of the Freedom Space Station. An atavistic fear, the fear that he had swallowed, ignored, since the very first moment, when he had contacted the living being, the species, that always had been called monsters before him. The enemy that his people had rendered guilty with every crimes. This enemy, this embodiement of absolute evil. Now, Da'an knew what was the feeling called and how was called this phenomenon : the absolute evil. He had seen so much planets, visited so much worlds and had plunged into so much people. that with time he had become more than a diplomat, he had learned to know more than what he was allowed to know as a diplomat. He could tell, could make out the foundations of a society. He could say, without much fear of being wrong, that Humans were in general paranoiacs and suspiscious. They focused everything on violence. They prefered to see peace as an improbable absence of violence, rather than see war as an unconceivable lack of peace. And their culture often opposed good against evil. Like most of the, civilized or not, societies did. Absolute evil and the purest of good. Black and white. The line was most of the time thin and barely grey. Goods against vilains.  
  
The Jaridians were the vilains, were his vilains. He had by this point realized how much had his conscienceness accepted this idea. Since the Taelons were born with their parents' ideas, and memories - and with it all compiled memories of their ancesters - this fear, this instinctive anger was there. This fear at the sight of what could not be described as something else than an enemy. This mixed feeling to know that he was in danger, to know that he had to be in danger. When Balvak had cooled up, when the Jaridian had stopped screaming, when Mikaïl Federov had lowered the station' internal temperature until it had reached many degrees below water's freezing point. At this moment, the intentions of peace had frighteningly decreased. Da'an had started to search for a weapon, this weapon that he knew had to be hanging at his side. A weapon, the long, curved knife that had been bathed in blood.  
  
He kenw all of that. He was perfectly able to look at himself, from the exterior without looking through the twisting mirror of one's eyes. But, to know of a fact, to observe it among other species, and to live it by himself, were two things that were so completely different.  
  
He felt Taelon. He did not feel tired : the energy that Balvak had given him when he had joined his body to his would allow him the luxury not to bath himself in an energy shower for a few more days. And then, after this, it was many centuries that he would see go by. Da'an felt well, physically so. Felt as a Taelon. Felt home, felt as one feels when they come back home after a long and deceiving travel. And he felt deceived of being what he was.  
  
Always, since, when he was a mere child, he had discovered the extended taelon empire, the power of the Synod, the species that they could bend to their will and the colonies that were dispatched throughout many galaxies. Since this day, he had always been very proud to be what he was. Then, he had learned about the Jaridians. He had been taught to direct all of the hatred he could gather toward this unstoppable enemy. Which he had dutily done. He wanted to do it. He had wanted to believe, had forced himself to believe that what he was taught was right. He had always wanted to believe in the Taelons, justify himself, justify them and their acts of vengeance and despair. They were his people. His brethens. Beings like him, beings who were dear to his heart, beings that were like him, in body as much as in mind. When he had started to be disgusted, he had willed himself to keep faith. Before understanding that using willpower to control faith was hypocrisy. He could show and display for all the others whatever he please. It mattered little. The important was for him to be honest with himself. There was the possibility of damnation.  
  
Da'an felt as a Taelon. He had always been so proud to be a Taelon. His thoughts constantly soothed by the commonality, this soft voice that spoke into their mind, shared their dreams and cradled them while they believed themselves to be isolated in loneliness.  
  
Then, why ? Why the feeling of solitude ? He had enough core energy to live during a thousand of years more than all Taelons put together. The Synod would not ask him to tell of what he had done and why, for heroes were not asked these kind of questions.  
  
The Companion was sitting in the orchid-shaped chair in the middle of the audience chamber of the Washington embassy. The night, covering the city's sky like a blanket of blackness, was beautiful and dotted with stars. Then why did it feel shattered inside ? Perhaps because his kind was dying, would diminish and finally disapear like these stars that suddenly and without explanations started to smallen before they collapsed on themselves. Perhaps also because all of his hopes of peace, to reunite his people and their former enemies' had been broken and were scattered being scattered away. Perhaps because his species' and his own destiny were one of a long hell and decay before a far from honorable death. Because they were condemned to death and the verdict had been stated and programmed by another species thousands of millions of years ago. It would happen. It had been decided as this. It could not not happen. Their destruction was apparently necessary.  
  
Perhaps because he feared that the Taelons would have to fade away and die. Nothing is eternal. Not life. Not their lives, neither was their species. All of their minds would be sent into nothingness. This fear. this panicking fear. again clutched to all he was inside. It spread from his abdomen to his chest, freezing everything in its icy flux. He did not want to die. And fate was unfair. The Taelons as had done all other species, had followed their path - they were neither of the most cruel nor of the most peaceful kinds and as had all others they had committed many mistakes. But why them ? Why now ? Why him ? Why had it to be him who would stay alive and watch as all of his friends, acquaintances, fellows - and children - would drift away ? Had fate something to hold against him ?  
  
Da'an was in need of someone. The silence reigning in his embassy, a silence that he had cherished and sought for earlier, this silence was growing heavier now. He needed someone. The Major Kincaid was of course unavailable. The young man had apparently considered his short leave and the mystery that had surrounded it - along with the implantation of the surveillance CVI - as a direct betrayal. When Da'an had returned to the mothership, he had searched, as he usually did, for the young protector's eyes, he had searched for the familiar contact. He had needed it. But had not gained it.  
  
He needed it. Comfort. He did not need someone who would try to understand, who would try to know why, how and what had been in all of this the exact role of Humanity, and how much innocent Humans had they abused with unspeakable cruelty. He needed someone who would understand a single thing : that he needed the comfort, that he needed to be listened to, that he needed a simple presence aside his own.  
  
The young hybrid, or so it appeared, did not know how to establish trust, did not know how to communicate caring for a Taelon. He seemed not to understand that, even though both attached to it a great importance, that understanding was not all. That inconditionnal support was something that Taelons also needed, that all living beings needed at a moment or another of their lives. The inconditional support. The inconditional care. The capacity to understand that he simply needed one person who would not lay on him a stare of suspiscion or disdain or contempt or distrust. But if he spoke of this, like this, to Liam, this one would answer that Da'an was only gaining the consequences of what his own betrayal had unleashed.  
  
Boone was sorely missed. Alone, in the middle of the embassy's main chamber, Da'an fully realized this. He missed Boone. William Boone. This man that in a few months was a person in the hands of which he would have put his life, blindly so.  
  
He had had in William Boone such a blind trust. A trust that had led him to believe that, while knowing that Boone's loyalty was not entirely directed at him, this man would never have harmed him, nor would have he let him in the hands of people who would have. Boone had had this way. to not hesitate. To not ponder whether or not was it a good political move to trust Da'an at this moment, to not wonder whether or not was the Taelon's need for care and comfort sincere. To not ask to many questions. Not insisting unless it was a professional matter. Not seeking to understand beyond what was Da'an was willing to explain, never pressing him. Just being there, being open. These things, these small differences that he remarked so much now. What was different with Liam. These differences had led his esteem of his ex-implant to heighten yet more as he had known that William Boone had occupied the same functions within the Resistance movement that his current protector was now occupying.  
  
Boone had been the very first, and most likely very last, individual to protect him, to seek to understand him rather than his species through him, and to fight for the cause of peace for him, for Da'an and because the man had had faith in him. Liam was attentionful and sometimes he had even been nearly affectionate with him, the young man always organized his security in the most perfect fashion, cared that nothing would happen to the North American Companion. But the attention, the affection, the care was always some kind of a supreme peak of irony. Liam always backed himself up with these words, justified himself with them. He said that he had given his word to protect Da'an until the last bit of air would be sucked out of his chest and that he would respect his word. A way to communicate to Da'an a clear message : that Liam was not protecting him, or no longer was, because he wanted to but because he meant to respect what he had pledged. For the betrayal of a given word would be exactly what had Da'an done to him and what would the young man, naturally, not do to him, for justice. Because he was not as much corrupted as was Da'an. It was a mean that was far more noble than many others. But this reason sounded fabulously hollow to him right now.  
  
And Ronald Sandoval, the implant, the model implant, servile and obedient. Another protector. Obedient, yet each time Da'an had let his eyes fall on the man's face, into his eyes, he had read there animosity, anger, disdain and hatred. Well burried and deeply hidden, but always present, beneath the implant's alternate willpower. Ronald Sandoval had served him for an unique reason : because the CVI had compelled him to do so. Now, it was more than clear.  
  
Sandoval had served and protected him because he had never been left the choice to really refuse Da'an's proposal. And then because of a gadget that had been modifying the interior chimical balance inside his brain in a way that had forced him to be in adoration of Da'an. Liam protected and worked for him for two reasons : to keep himself straight to the word he had given and for the cayse, because Da'an served the cause, because Da'an was the only barrier between the fragile peace that had been set in place and a cruel war between their species. Boone had served and protected him because he had had faith in him and in peace. Period.  
  
Liam had once tried to fragilize this blind trust that Da'an had in his ancient protector. By telling him frankly that he was Boone's replacent in more than one way. Both in being Da'an's protector and as a double-agent for the Resistance. The young man had said that he was "sorry to ruin the trust that you could have in this man, but he had a mission to carry out Da'an : the mission to get as close to you as he could, so you would trust him. Mission complete as it seems."  
  
But it was false. False. Perhaps was Liam merely attempting to ruin Da'an's trust in a dead man. Or perhaps was he genuinely trying to clear what he perceived as a Taelon's clouded thoughts. But it was false. William had come, alone, to save him, when he was dying. He had gone against the orders of the Synod. To search for him and to talk to him, his voice bearing the weight of honesty, his hand holding his tightly, refusing to let go. The things, the trust, the hope, the grief that Da'an had seen in the eyes of this man had guaranteed him that his loayalty was bound to him. An inconditional and eternal loyalty. A perfect loyalty. Such one that Liam could never give him. What Liam had not been able to give him because of the thousands of generations of Kimeras born before him who screamed in his ears that Taelons were not to be trusted.  
  
Boone could come to see him sometimes, explain to him, patiently, that he did not approve what his people was doing to his own kind. But that he knew that Da'an was doing all he could and was willing to do to allow Humanity to survive and that he was thankful about it. Also, Boone had told him once that he knew he probably never would understand or know everything or enough. But that he was there if Da'an needed a confident.  
  
Boone, in the morning, when he entered in the embassy, came to take his orders for the day, an early coffe cup in his right hand. He used to stand before Da'an and wait patiently for the Companion to acknowledge his presence. Something, when perturbating or shocking events had filled the previous night, it could take up to thirty minutes. But Boone was waiting still. And with each morning came the same question, conveying a silent, quiet form of delicate caring. How are you ? Some simple words that made an immense difference that Da'an had come to appreciate. His implant never insisted. When he received no answer or that it was visible that Da'an was not well at all and that the alien's body language told him that it was none of his business he did not insist. Affection and caring was also the capacity for one to determine when it should be given in great or little amounts.  
  
The difference perhaps. Because all of those small differences could gather in a large whole. The difference was that Boone had sometimes been able to give to what was political and professional a second importance. He had been able to see that the only thing Da'an was in need of was of one who could be close to him and understand his words and feeling. Liam Kincaid though seemed unable to untangle politics and trust. Boone had never trusted Da'an on the political plane, this the Companion knew for sure since the announcement of Boone's involvment in the Resistance had been made clear. Only some kind of trust had none-the-less been established by some other means. Liam was seemingly unable to forget, when it was clear that Da'an needed it, the political distrust.  
  
A collection of small differences. Which now changed the world. And made of Da'an's world a place that was grey, cold and lifeless.  
  
FIN 


End file.
